This Is What Revolution Looks Like

Posted on Nov 15, 2011

I have seen my share of revolts, insurgencies and revolutions, from the guerrilla conflicts in the 1980s in Central America to the civil wars in Algeria, the Sudan and Yemen, to the Palestinian uprising to the revolutions in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania as well as the wars in the former Yugoslavia. George Orwell wrote that all tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but that once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force. We have now entered the era of naked force. The vast million-person bureaucracy of the internal security and surveillance state will not be used to stop terrorism but to try and stop us.

Despotic regimes in the end collapse internally. Once the foot soldiers who are ordered to carry out acts of repression, such as the clearing of parks or arresting or even shooting demonstrators, no longer obey orders, the old regime swiftly crumbles. When the aging East German dictator Erich Honecker was unable to get paratroopers to fire on protesting crowds in Leipzig, the regime was finished. The same refusal to employ violence doomed the communist governments in Prague and Bucharest. I watched in December 1989 as the army general that the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had depended on to crush protests condemned him to death on Christmas Day. Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak lost power once they could no longer count on the security forces to fire into crowds.

The process of defection among the ruling class and security forces is slow and often imperceptible. These defections are advanced through a rigid adherence to nonviolence, a refusal to respond to police provocation and a verbal respect for the blue-uniformed police, no matter how awful they can be while wading into a crowd and using batons as battering rams against human bodies. The resignations of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s deputy, Sharon Cornu, and the mayor’s legal adviser and longtime friend, Dan Siegel, in protest over the clearing of the Oakland encampment are some of the first cracks in the edifice. “Support Occupy Oakland, not the 1% and its government facilitators,” Siegel tweeted after his resignation.

There were times when I entered the ring as a boxer and knew, as did the spectators, that I was woefully mismatched. Ringers, experienced boxers in need of a tuneup or a little practice, would go to the clubs where semi-pros fought, lie about their long professional fight records, and toy with us. Those fights became about something other than winning. They became about dignity and self-respect. You fought to say something about who you were as a human being. These bouts were punishing, physically brutal and demoralizing. You would get knocked down and stagger back up. You would reel backward from a blow that felt like a cement block. You would taste the saltiness of your blood on your lips. Your vision would blur. Your ribs, the back of your neck and your abdomen would ache. Your legs would feel like lead. But the longer you held on, the more the crowd in the club turned in your favor. No one, even you, thought you could win. But then, every once in a while, the ringer would get overconfident. He would get careless. He would become a victim of his own hubris. And you would find deep within yourself some new burst of energy, some untapped strength and, with the fury of the dispossessed, bring him down. I have not put on a pair of boxing gloves for 30 years. But I felt this twinge of euphoria again in my stomach this morning, this utter certainty that the impossible is possible, this realization that the mighty will fall.

fuck the israelis and palestinians both. your precious palestinians have been led
down into this mess mostly by their own inept and ignorant leadership.
they’ve failed again and again and have no great claim on the world’s sympathy
after taking up weapons and then terrorism and then suicide vests.
==========================
Fuck you and fuck your ignorant rotten little brain, Mr. heterochromatic, whatever the fucken bloody one is!!!!

fuck the israelis and palestinians both. your precious palestinians have been led
down into this mess mostly by their own inept and ignorant leadership.
they’ve failed again and again and have no great claim on the world’s sympathy
after taking up weapons and then terrorism and then suicide vests.

For the 99% Americans, who have been occupied and dispossessed by the alliance of political-corporate-Zionist controlled America, it is imperative to learn from the experiences of resistance by Palestinians, who individually and collectively continue to struggle against all odds. Watch the short YouTube below for a sampling of one Palestinian’s struggle for dignity, justice and human rights.

RAFEEF ZIADAH is a Canadian-Palestinian spoken word artist and activist. Her debut CD Hadeel is dedicated to Palestinian youth, who still fly kites in the face of F16 bombers, who still remember the names if their villages in Palestine and still hear the sound of Hadeel (cooing of doves) over Gaza.

The lack of civility - let alone respect - is so painful that reading many of the posted comments and exchanges relating to most articles tells me that the Left and Progressives will never be able to effect the change we say we want. For more than forty years I’ve seen grandstanding and backbiting defeat honest efforts to seek positive change on matters environmental, social, and political. When will we pay more than lip service to “Solidarity” and learn to reason and work together? We’re running out of time, Sisters and Brothers!

I haven’t given up entirely on democracy yet Ozark Michael but the present system dooms democracy to anything but a sham. Are you for getting all outside money out of running for office? Money stops being a concern so we only see the merits an history of the candidates. But until then if you have the money you have your candidate no matter what a fuck up or crook or dumbass they may be but they do the work the richest pay for. Is that the system of “democracy” you support Ozark Michael? That is the system we have now.

*yawns* Anyone worth their salt looked up who was behind this ‘grass roots’ movement before it even happened. And if you did, you know who they are. So either ignorance rules here, or deception. Oh, and the article was boring.

All of the media crap lately is further evidence that
they are trying to distract the masses. Two sex scandals
have emerged in the last two weeks because it is what
they have used before to lure people away from the truth,
from waking up.

Independent thought is their greatest enemy. The only
problem I have with this process is that it leaves our
government open for a takeover. It is a corporation that
has failed to meet the demands of the oppressed.

Overturn the US government, take back the media, or we
shall find ourselves under the rule and regime of another
nation who has a grudge against the US government. Korea?
China? Russia? This is our fate unless we, the greatest
mass of our land, rise against the pollution of truth
sent to save the wealthy from extrication.

Okay Imax, I will bite. Lets see,.... The Tea Party was bought and sold by the likes of the Koch Brothers and Fox unbalanced news. Occupy Wall Street is a group of people who declined to accept a leader for obvious reasons, who find fairness absent from a tainted corrupt broken system, which has disenfranchised them. A system controlled by the same people, the money is speech crowd the disenfranchises, who took over the Tea Bag movement.

This all smacks of a kids’ campout—where hardships are endured in the spirit of adventure in the context of going back to “normal life” after a few weeks, and forgetting about it.

Pain and discomfort do NOT necessarily produce courage—especially when one’s convictions are narrow and narcissistic.

But the real kicker here is that white folks still believe they are entitled to a big slice of the pie—especially if the pie belongs to non-whites; hence the endless warring to steal non-whites’ land and resources and commit genocide against them. Until whites own up to the carnage they have created for centuries to fuel their need for exceptionalism and privilege, the US doesn’t have a chance of a snowball in hell of any real revolution—moreover, mealy-mouthed camp cheerleaders and counselors like Chris Hedges are but another obstruction to bearing down on reality and making amends.

Occupy Wall Street has a clear message, just some prefer conveniently not hear it! I will refrain listing the grievances once avian ad nauseam, for only those who dwell in ossification and love incoherence can not accept the OWS grievances,... for then their lack of logic is doomed to expose their Hairy Neanderthal Ass!

To OzarkMichael—I didn’t think it was possible to miss the point I was trying to make: that the recent Russian revolution overturning the Soviet Union was PEACEFULLY accomplished, but you did it. Sadly it was a capitalist one, but that should please you, not make you more fearful. Maybe you don’t like what capitalism is capable of, and haven’t come to terms with it yet. Remember: the Russian Republic isn’t socialist anymore. You can’t have you philosophical cake and eat it too.

An example of how the current system has fried peoples brains is evident in peoples’ view of the “problem” with OWS.

1. They don’t have a leader

Your right! That is a problem. Do you know how hard it is to buy off a leader, or cut the head off and watch the body die, when there isn’t one.

I mean this thing could have ended a month and a half ago, if the elite could have just locked up the “leader” for the next 5 years, or if they decided to just slip him a few mil to make the whole thing go away.

2. There is no message

Can you read? I am being serious. There are thousands of signs that have the message on them at every march.

Also, there was a declaration released by OWS over a month ago. Why don’t people realize that there have been demands??

Chris nailed it. If the demands were to be met, the house of cards crumbles. Its game over for the elite if they stop doing what they are doing.

The demands are there, in the Queen’s English. In a nice numbered list.

If you refuse to acknowledge them as the demands, blame yourself, not OWS. If the news is telling you there is no leader, and no demands and that is the problem, get a new news source.

The only problem with OWS is that the foundation is shaking.

We were supposed to be enamored with iPads, GaGas, Snookies, and Dancing Stars. News is just a bunch of scary stories of abductions and rapes and murders, because it is a scary world out there!! Don’t trust your neighbor, and always blame the “other.’

It’s people on welfare, and on and on and on…

If people didn’t think that Marx was some evil creature, and were able to realize he was simply a philosopher, it would be easy to see that this is what he predicted. Capitalism served its purpose, but it ran its course. Russia didn’t follow his plan, WE DID.

The problem is not the people on the ground, it’s the people in the skyscrapers.

All great protests had leaders backed by masses. Things would be different if OWS had elected congressmen or senators parrotting the message.

So there you have the failure of OWS. I posted my message in the last column and will repost here again:

“Unoccupy Wall Street

Big business and big government have colluded to convince the American public that saving for retirement is better than paying off debt.

Give us your money and we will give it back to you when you retire - with no guaruntee of any return, while at the same time, keep paying your credit card debt and mortgage debt.

Oh, and by the way, you all should have insurance policies to make sure you can pay back your debt.
The mortgage, retirement and insurance companies are all from the same group of corporate conglomerates who are sucking us ALMOST dry every month. These monster parasites let us keep just enough to continue the cycle.

The occupy Wall Street movement is missing an opportunity here to spread the message:

Unoccupy Wall Street

Stop saving for retirement when you have debt.
By eliminating debt there is a corresponding reduction in the need for insurance.
Shop local and stop buying from corporate america.
Support candidates that share your values.
Never underestimate the power of the American people! “

We are witnessing a total failure of our financial system on a global basis. Speculators have taken over the financial system and have been caught up in their own scheme.

The battle now is will WE allow our government to hold the citizens responsible or business responsible for the losses. In the last round…...we lost.

The future of this movement may live or die on whether or not enough people can put the farcical and arrogant “American Dream” behind them and own up to the horror which we are and have been collectively perpetrating upon ourselves and the rest of the planet in this delusional frenzy of…. business as usual.

As much as I love the idea of thousands of Americans finally uniting and coming together the Occupy movement appears to be sorely lacking in a few factors necessary for success. Where is the leadership? Where is the organization? I don’t care how many people you can get to mob together, without structure and organization it is just that; a mob, easily made and easily broken. Also I would like to know exactly what the solutions these people have in mind for our current problems. Are you simply following the crowd and the cause without actually being able to offer alternatives to what you are protesting? Sadly, I believe most are doing exactly that.

Stop kidding yourselves. Blood will spill. Neighbor against neighbor blood. Small businessmen that never harmed anyone will have their buildings torched in the chaos.

You are starting this. You are promoting this. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are, in the end you will say, “But we told them not to get violent”, then you will blame it on provacateurs, not accepting it for what it is, the pre-ordained result for what you are doing now. Blood will be on your hands. Not blood of the 1%, they will all be in Dubai or Sweden. It is the blood of the 99%, the avg working joe that doesn’t want our revolution. In the end, you will have built nothing, only destroyed. Then like Che and other revolution junkies before him, you will go look for some other place to destroy, or just fight for power in the vacuum ala Napoleon in Animal Farm. Probably more like Lord of the Flies.

This will end very badly, and you are the ones bringing it. You own the blood. You killed the kids on this great island of freedom.

Well tomorrow will be another day. Occupy Wall Street is either tucking it in for the winter or they will be showing some more people power, the real live people who get beaten up by billy clubs pepper sprayed and go to jail, by what is laughingly called New York’s finest!

We shall see tomorrow, viral or not so viral? Maybe they should pull the troops out of Afgaistan, because the money wasted on stupid wars may be needed to pay Bloomberg’s NYC;s finest for some overtime protecting the disinfrachiers, the manipulators for inequality, the corporations are people too and the money is speech, yes they must protect the opportunists for they are the 1 percent!

Chris, after years of writing intellectually lazy garbage you have found your voice, your groove again. OWS has inspired you to your best and clearest writing since I’ve been on TD. I congratulate you on it.

The OWS movement is viral, when viral is a Good Thing. The more they try to repress it the bigger it grows. It is the same as the Arab Spring, the Indignados in Spain, and, unbelievably, the Israeli Summer. All are saying the same thing: The powerful elite have fucked up this world in every way imaginable and it’s time for them to go. The Israeli Likud, American TeaParty, Egyptian/Tunisia/Libyan dictators. Even Italy has tossed it’s Mussolini-like PM, Silvio Berlusconi. Every attempt to marginalize them has failed.

When even in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, across the street from a bar I hung out in on many a Friday and Saturday, police are showing up with M-16s and riot gear against unarmed occupiers, yet OWS just gets bigger, you KNOW who has the pulse of the nation, and who has the nation by the throat. But the throat-holders are terrified, as well they should be.

There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolution­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­s of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successful­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­l­­­­­­­­­­­­­y resisted by violence..­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­.

“The logic and necessity of the new generation­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­-­­­­­­­­­­­­­-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­a­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­n­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­d what they are so furiously opposed to—must be seen against a background of what has gone wrong in America. It must be understood in light of the betrayal and loss of the American dream, the rise of the Corporate State, and the way in which that State dominates, exploits, and ultimately destroys both nature and man. Its rationalit­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­y must be measured against the insanity of existing “reason”—­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­r­­­­­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­a­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­s­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­o­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­n that makes impoverish­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­m­­­­­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­n­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­t­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­, dehumaniza­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­t­­­­­­­­­­­­­i­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­o­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­n­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­, and even war appear to be logical and necessary.­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­.­­­­­­­­­­­­­.

Kindly point out where I have ever advocated violence in any way, shape or form heterochromatic. Rather, I advocate a system that allows the working man to enjoy the bounty of life, a system where all have access to a good education if they so choose, a system where obscene profit is outlawed, even better a system where workers are also owners.

@heterochromatic: easy pal, Elisa is not an evil person. I think Elisa, like most OWS supporters, doesnt realize that they are imitating the corporations, merely replacing corporate elite with their own Leftist elitism.

Night Gaunt said:

Oh that’s right just continue to keep quiet while rigged elections,

Thats the issue right there. OWS has given up on democracy and now attempts by direct action to short circuit democracy.

I have not given up on democracy yet. Many people havent. We still want to vote, we still want voting to matter, but OWS direct action makes voting even weaker than it supposedly is already.

OWS is, in its essence, a method to circumvent elections. I know that you think there is no other way, but i point out that if conservatives did such a thing it would be called fascism.

As far as I am aware we’re seeing for the first time this individual acknowledge that his goals of mayhem for everyone does not represent the thinking of the “99”. Now, very suddenly, so many others, who see things differently, are also to blame, along with the 1%.

Mayhem was diverted, for the time-being, and this poster is upset and lashing-out at larger groups of people.

-

Isn’t it time to chastise and put aside the petulant children? Isn’t it past time to begin the real work for lasting change? We can do this by ‘Occupying’ Legislative Houses all over the nation.

It’s doable, it’s realistic, and it would be an actual plan. The best part is that we don’t have to hurt anyone!

wrong in every way, Elisa and your rhetoric about
“those who demand a more equitable financial system”
justifies nothing and excuses nothing if violence is
to be used to back up some bullshit demand or other.

exactly what part of the inequality of the financial
system do you have a right to change ...by demand?

who the hell do you represent?....really represent,
not rhetorically represent

Leefeller, - Geeze, looks like some of the right leaning minions are wetting their pants with the glee over the coordinated tearing down of Occupy Wall Street.

-

And to think the tearing down of Occupy could have been prevented if only more reasonable people had the temerity to speak up.

I hope one lesson we take from this episode lay in how exacting revenge is not the way. As we have just witnessed, the types leaders such “movements” throw up are, to put it plainly, undesirable to most people.

I do not sit in judgment of you Michael rather you sit in judgment of those who demand a more equitable financial system by the only means left. You say such methods are an expense and are “wrong.” Wrong in what way? Because they will
not bring about change? Or wrong as in breaking the law? The laws favor the power/elite Michael. Either through money or other effective means the oligarchy has our Congress and President in their pockets not to mention our taxpayer money.
This in itself is criminal.Have you discussed any of your misgivings with OWS people? You seem to know all about them and seem to have, to put it mildly, an intense dislike for them bordering on ill will. Why? Right Wing rhetoric that the power/elite spew out through their control of msm and also religion has thoroughly engulfed you. How well you play their hand.

“Far as I see it, the minions supporting status quo are just as guilty of instituting inequality as the 1 percent whose asses they seem to be kissing with smacking sounds, allowing the likes of special interests such as Koch Brothers to continue business as usual and grab those so American as apple pie profits.”

Geeze, looks like some of the right leaning minions are wetting their pants with the glee over the coordinated tearing down of Occupy Wall Street, the military state seems to be upon us, welcome to fascist land for the self rightous who believe freedom of speech is Corporations buying their political agendas which really works well since money is speech!

Occupy has called attention by waking up the apathy nation, a slumbering society groomed in ignorance.

You do know the people of Occupy Wall Street are part of the targets of voter restricting laws making it much harder for minorities and poor to vote? In fact there is a Tea Bag Ass hole in Texas who said the poor should not even be allowed to vote! I got mine F! U! Teabaggery is a classed act of what is happening to all of the 99 percent, by a few!

Far as I see it, the minions supporting status quo are just as guilty of instituting inequality as the 1 percent whose asses they seem to be kissing with smacking sounds, allowing the likes of special interests such as Koch Brothers to continue business as usual and grab those so American as apple pie profits.

Fascism exists and I suspect we are very close to living in it if not already!

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Tell me Ozark Michael since freedom isn’t free, and the 1% have been funneled by their means of our wealth into the billions of not a trillion or so to them, what are we to do then? Oh that’s right just continue to keep quiet while rigged elections, rigged gov’t and rigged economy (by them)make them even richer and the rest of us, including you Ozark Michael, poorer. Weakening the fabric of our Republic and the freedoms you claim to support even if you consider the rest of us criminals. Just like the 1%. Slaves should be quiet but some of us aren’t. We either get the bought politicians so afraid of us that the riches they get from the legal bribes of the wealthiest have less meaning than them doing the work of The People. Either we get it back or we go the road of Rome from republic to imperial power.What say you?

Though I thoroughly support the OW movement I think there is a great deal of naivete in its substance with regard to how the Empire will strike back. To suppose that the 1% will just give up control and or any portion of their wealth is laughable. The US is the most armed most militant country in the world and it only a mater of time before troops are in our streets to suppress the protestors in the name of securing “safety and order”. We just have to look at the inhumanity that has taken place abroad to know what our military is capable of. Trophy killing of civilians and institutionalized torture.

If this movement is to succeed it will have to strike at the only vulnerable aspect of the 1%. Control of the money supply. The first steep of which is to have a full audit of the Federal Reserve. Find out how we were robed and by who. Next the Federal Reserve needs to be taken out of the hands of the multinational banks and become a government agency accountable to the public.
Until this is done we the 99% will be paying for our own suppression.

Most people don’t have a clue how the Banks rob from us every day with the creation of debt. Do your self a favor and watch this short video and get educated. Caution, it will make your blood boil when you learn how easily the country is being silently looted by the 1%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbP-5zUsom8 We shot this one minute video as our giant sign of protest and support for the Occupy Movement. First we chant, then we pull our money out of banks and place it into credit unions. Then we stop buying cheaply made foreign goods. Don’t owe on credit cards. VOTE. Get involved. Post info all over your face book page until it annoys people but they get it—WE are the problem if we don’t search out a solution with our actions. There is a police chief’s wife on this vid. She knows she is the ninetynine percent. So is the school teacher. So is the pharmacist. So are the kids. And probably you. Every baby step each person takes matters. We have voices and need to use them. Either that or sit around watching reality TV, post pictures of funny cats on facebook to amuse your friends, discuss American Idol and what Oprah said last week. But ten years from now don’t be surprised when things are so bad there’s no more room to change things without a peaceful sane approach.

Chris, I have always felt that ‘things that cannot go on forever don’t.’ The
imbalance in our society cannot and will not stand. It cannot be otherwise.

The question is how much pain and suffering will have to be endured before it is
over? And my gut continues to tell me that in the case of the US and its neo-
liberal allies, the answer is going to be quite a lot of pain and suffering. These
people have no intention of either working towards justice and peace or letting go
of power. My suspicion and fear is that the US will never in fact self-correct, and
that it will, like Nazi Germany, be restrained by force before all is said and done.

YG-walking through the streets yelling about dubious ethical actions in the
financial system and thinking that it’s going to solve any thing is far, far remote of
a possibility than the revivial of the economy.

the economy has burst and regenerated before….the end of economic
disproportion has never been achieved or much changed through random actions
at the margin.

I do not want to be treated differently than anyone.
I want everyone to be treated with dignity.

I did not occupy for a good time. I did not come to camp. I occupy to make a nuisance of myself. I occupy to be a thorn in your side.

So arrest me. Again. I’ll be back tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

Use every weapon at your disposal. I’m not going away.

Try a little exercise with me, if you will.
Throw your imagination far, far into the future. How do you think this movement will be perceived in a hundred years?
Will it be about public urination and defecation? (We have porta-potties, by the way) Will it be about bongo drums? Will it be about a few smashed windows?

We have a huge banking crisis where the culprits are clear- the collusion is obvious, draconian cuts to the public sector, skyrocketing profits for big business, high unemployment, low social-mobility, 30 years of stagnant wages, skyrocketing food prices, medical costs and college tuition, crumbling infrastructure, dying oceans, the looming crisis of global climate change (what if the average temperature increases more than 8-11 degrees over the next 100 years?), the wholesale destruction of the environment to profit the few, multiple wars- and a corporate government poised to dish out more of the same.

You have all that- and you have a ragtag group of citizens protesting in the shadow of their oppressor institutions. Gathering to say, “this isn’t right. Maybe we can’t stop you yet, but we’re here to remind you that this is wrong.”
How will history remember this time?
Get on the right side of history, friends.
Get into the streets.

There is nothing the 1% Army can do to stop OWS. Evicting them from their protest site while restricting media from reporting on the event was a BIG mistake by Bloomberg.

The man has single-handedly taken what was considered by many as a fringe movement and turned it into the best example of what is wrong with American politicians. He has proven the purpose of their protest.

It wasnt long ago that some Truthdiggers buzzed about how OWS was more popular that the Tea Party, how that proved OWS is relevent and must be heeded, while the Tea Party was irrelevent and must be ignored.

Now that the polls have flipped, is the opposite now true? What do the bitter clingers of OWS have to say now?

Nothing like the hard lessons of life to teach us lessons. Probably not in this case. I bet the Leftists will exempt themselves from learning those lessons, just like they demand exemptions from the consequences of all their actions.

caution. Before you spew your hatred at the poll, be aware itt was run by Daily Kos connected PPP. The bitter truth is finally dawning on some people.

So what do you propose Michael considering we have a system where the greedy, money-loving less than human animals trample on those who are working toward a system where the bounties of the earth are preserved and shared? As I recall, Christianity, which you profess to be part of, is not about taking what you can but living in brotherhood with your fellowman.

Yes, peace would be nice, and if i am merely stirring up trouble, please condemn me. However, please consider what i am saying.

Occupy is the beginning of a new inequality. Inequality is a bad thing, whether it comes from Right or Left. I am not interested in seeing inequality expanded, even if it was for something i liked.

Occupy creates inequality by expecting to be treated differently than other protest movements. For two months it succeeded. They obtained special rights to ‘occupy’ and as we can see from reading the posts here, many supporters claim special rights to do much more than merely “occupy”. I take those posts very seriously, since I consider they represent the spectrum of Leftist thought in the general population.

“Occupy” creates a political superclass of Leftists who have higher speech rights than the rest of us, such as: forcing the rest of us to pay for their Occupation instead of paying for it themselves, co-opting the police, co-opting the military, stoking up followers to vandalism and violence by their Leftist rhetoric, demanding that news reports overlook the bad events at their Occupation, demanding that the news abandon all objectivity about Occupy, and bypassing normal democratic means of redress of grievances.

By demanding these ‘super’ speech rights for themselves, they make themselves an elite class. If it succeeds, I am concerned that Occupy will need to codify its ‘super’ speech rights so that the populous at large would have difficulty overturning “Occupy” gains. That isnt what democracy looks like, by the way.

When a small faction votes among itself, and then dictates that decision to the rest of us, that isnt democracy, that is the old Soviet method.

I dont support that. I cant. Even if it was being done for causes that i love, I could not support such methods. I might support some OWS goals but the method is wrong. How we do things is just as important as things we want to do.

elisalouisa, i hope my explanation gives you some reasons to judge me less harshly.

Chris, you’ve converted me. In the past I’ve had major issues with some of your writing. Your eloquent support of OWS has brought me round (not that I will relinquish my critical component, and I hope you wouldn’t want me to). I’m inspired now as I was never inspired, hopeful as I never dared be during the marches, the rallies of the past. No more one-issue marches, no more one-issue rallies! The system must fall, OWS is building the new system with every moment of its existence, and your writing is helping all this to resonate profoundly.

Chris, You are the reincarnation of Thomas Paine.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight.

Unfortunately I fear the revolution may fail because the main problem is not even being mentioned.
Control of the money supply.
As long as the 1% control our money supply, printing and distributing wealth we will all be relegated to a life of slavery and be kept in line buy their paid forces. We are paying for the revolution and we are paying for it’s repression.

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws” — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

“they can steal”. yes, they can and will for an eternity. but, isn’t stealing a
moral and legal imperative of the u.s constitution?
if it isn’t, then, to my and many other people and ‘alien’ peoples’ of this
planet great sorrow, we have a diktatorship in u.s, but much greater than
that of the recently deposed libyan or any govt.

and constitution u.s ‘laws’ and what all that means aside, we do have a
dictatorship in u.s; envied by all world supremacists.
but what kind of diktatorship? with WMD, bases all over the world, largest
and strongest terrorist spy agency world had seen to date, best
weaponry, very obedient fbi and city police, warships cruising oceans and
threatening any disobedient diktator with utter destruction of him and his
structure of society and governance.

yes, folks, u.s diktators know—unlike ‘liberals’, greens, protesters,
‘leftists’, anarchists—what must be utterly destroyed: the structures of
governances that legalize RIGHT TO KNOW [via free education, public
ownership of distribution of information, honest teachers and honest
curriculum], right to life/healthcare.

and i hear, iran is already being attacked. if true, what a strange
coincidence???!!!. tnx

I happened to glance at the New York Post this morning with a picture of 5 or so policemen holding a protestor horizontally as if they just pulled a 10-pounder out of the lake and were showing him off for a picture. “And Stay Out!” the headline reads. I’ve noticed a lot of this crude language in papers, treating the occupiers as dirty brutes that need to be shown the cold hand of justice. Fortunately, I assume pictures like this only pour gasoline on the fire that is OWS.

I wonder about the future of the OWS movement a lot. Let me say that I am in no way critical of the protest, and would have to agree summarily with their objections to the political and corporate corruption of our once-great nation. But how new is this corruption really? What makes these atrocities (bailouts, heath care bill, trillion dollar wars, etc.) so extreme in particular, or is it more of a culmination of smaller events that has led to OWS? It seems to me that a good percentage of the issue is not necessarily politically related. We have an enormous reconfiguration of global labor supply and demand that has never been seen before. The rising of nations like China and India, and their billions of citizens, has finally put the western worker in a great deal of trouble. How are we to compete with people who can do the same work for a fraction of the cost?

I guess I’m mostly interested in what kind of legislation or political action OWS would be interested in seeing that would be able to give people the jobs they want for a wage they can live on. What leverage or bargaining power do we really have as an overpaid American worker in the global labor market? We can complain about corporatism and globalization all we want, and perhaps justifiably so, but the truth is that these companies will find the work they need whether it employs us or not. What sort of laws can you put in place to change that?

I agree that there is enormous income inequality in America, as well as huge problems in our campaign finance laws and political processes that need to be fixed. I would love to see these things addressed, but there seems to be another, perhaps larger force out there going against the American worker. The solution to this problem, if there is one, is not immediately clear to me. What do more successful countries like Denmark, Norway, Germany do to stay competitive in the face of this rising tide?

Well for some their ox hasn’t been gored, or so they think, so they must attack those bothersome spoil sports that don’t like the situation and by protesting are attacking their way of they world they like. They may not by part of the 1% or even the top 9% below it but they believe all the propaganda. So to convince true believers is very hard if not impossible so they aren’t our target. It is those who do question what they believe after they have done all that they have been told to do. Work hard, save money, and buy,buy,buy and still lost their job. Lost their house etc. Some of them are protesting too. They don’t like to be lied to an robbed. This isn’t Right or Left this is who has the money and how they got it.

The real embarrassment is in the few self righteous closed minded minions of status quo who do not understand or maybe appreciate Occupy Wall Streets message. NO!.... All they can focus on is fecal matter, when in reality their comments are the only fecal matter in the room!

Notice trolls never acknowledge the issue for then their points are shot out of the water. So inequality is never mentioned, disenfranchisement is hushed, fairness has no place in their fecal spewing and pissing contest.

I suggest the only hate and sickness is in the Limbaugh like mentality parroted here by those few Fox friends, truth and fairness cannot be a part of hate, for hate is a human action supported by a constant stream of lies and even used by trolls!

Interesting, in the past is I never acknowledged the existence of trolls, guess it may have something to do with being an atheist. Where is it written “the self outright and stupid shall step in their own feces matter?”

So yes, it really would be good in these moments of uncertainty to remember the Soviet Union, since thatt is where the Occupiers are taking us. Do we really want to go there?
So what do you propose Michael considering we have a system where the greedy, money-loving less than human animals trample on those who are working toward a system where the bounties of the earth are preserved and shared? As I recall, Christianity, which you profess to be part of, is not about taking what you can but living in brotherhood with your fellowman.

While the corporate (R) & (D) party’s campaigning is theater, the voting is not.

The elections serve as a barometer of dissent, used to determine whether dissidents have any popular support, or not… whether good policies have any significant support.

99% of voters have been voting for every evil that OWS is protesting against. We all keep getting the evil shit the corporate party’s Republicans and Democrats keep voting together for, because only 1% of the voters have refused to vote for either evil.

Will the liberals loving OWS demonstrators now betray them on Tuesday, November 06, 2012?

corporate greed banks on investment’s unconcern for false gain…
sidetracking the status quo with shareholder ideas of compliance…
while buying up unjustness to try taking rebellion off the exchange…
unaware that its acts of unfairness solidify its inequity’s own defiance!...

After I got out of the Oakland jail on Monday I went back to Frank Agawa plaza. Maybe 10 cops smiling and laughing. The sun was shining. Babies were cooing. Lovers were loving.
Money was being exchanged for goods and services.[/quote

Nice to hear that the public has access to the park again, after it had been siezed and selfishly commandeered for so long by the far Leftist Occupiers.

Though I’m sure it will get worse before it gets better, it might be good in these moments of uncertainty to remember the demise of the Soviet Union. A populace brainwashed from birth, overseen by the most extensive security apparatus ever constructed by government and armed forces with nuclear capabilities, isolated by travel restrictions and censorship, still managed a bloodless revolution that changed their society to the core. The first step: demanding what you really want, without apologies, qualifications, or compromises. The higher the goals, the better. Chris, it has been a pleasure to see your transformation in the last couple of months, from what looked like despair to honest-to-god inspiration and hope. Right on, brother!

“And all this time you thought freedom was just another word for your right to defecate in public.”

This pointless, mean-spirited response is proof positive of the callousness and indifference of some to the Occupy movement’s aims, pathetic claims to support it “in principle” aside. As YG succinctly implies, human offal such as ITroll are, and always have been, in the way.

AN UPPER-MIDDLE INCOME, oil-producing country, Venezuela enjoyed the highest standard of living in Latin America. The country’s gross domestic product ( GDP) in 1988 was approximately US$58 billion, or roughly US$3,100 per capita. Although the petroleum industry has dominated the Venezuelan economy since the 1920s, aluminum, steel, and petrochemicals diversified the economy’s industrial base during the 1980s. Agriculture activity was relatively minor and shrinking, whereas services were expanding.

Venezuela possessed enormous natural resources. The country was the world’s third largest exporter of oil, its ninth largest producer of oil, and accounted for more oil reserves than any other nation in the Western Hemisphere. The national petroleum company, Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.—PDVSA), was also the third largest international oil conglomerate. Because of its immense mineral wealth, Venezuela in 1990 was also poised to become an international leader in the export of coal, iron, steel, and aluminum.

Despite bountiful natural resources and significant advances in some economic areas, Venezuela in 1990 continued to suffer from the debilitating effects of political patronage, corruption, and poor economic management. The country’s political and economic structures often allowed a small elite to benefit at the expense of the masses. As a result, Venezuela’s income distribution was uneven, and its social indicators were lower than the expected level for a country with Venezuela’s level of per capita income. Many economic institutions were also weak relative to the country’s international stature. The efforts of the administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez (president, 1974-79, 1989- ) to reform the economy, especially if coupled with political and institutional reforms, would likely determine whether the country would reach its extraordinary potential.

I hope you will continue to post here, bringing the light of truth to these threads that are increasingly dominated by right wing provocateurs and silly liberals who think their insular and jaundiced views are reality but are not.

Gandhi was successful because he started making demands. He marched for them and fasted for them. OWS has to start making specific demands if they want to get something accomplished. I’ve been to too many GA’s where there is too much talk about procedure and nonsense and nothing about what needs to be accomplished to change the situation.

After I got out of the Oakland jail on Monday I went back to Frank Agawa plaza. Maybe 10 cops smiling and laughing. The sun was shining. Babies were cooing. Lovers were loving.
Money was being exchanged for goods and services.
I contrasted this idyllic scene to the night before- Hordes and hordes of fully armed, battle ready robots marching in lock step (all on overtime pay, naturally). Helicopters and search lights. Spotters on the roofs above.
All to kick people out of tents. All to arrest me, the 17 pastors and reverends I was chillin’ with, a few sleeping campers and a trio of guys meditating.
It was amazing. Best movie I’ll ever see.

I hope some of you know that the homeless live on the streets of Oakland. I pass by them every day. They routinely hang around Frank Agawa plaza. On the walk home from the jail I passed one of them curled up in a sleeping bag. He was lying in filth and surrounded by everything he owned in the world.
Today I met a man named Jeffrey who lives with his wife, two kids and four other family members under a bridge in another Oakland park. No one cares about him.
No one cares about his teenage daughters.
The only time anyone would care about him was if he, his family and 50 of his street friends went and set up camp in the park in front of city hall. Then someone would care about him. He would be a constant, painful reminder of those being left behind.
When MLK had the same vision for his Poor Peoples
Campaign did he foresee how the 1% would respond?
I had always hoped I was wrong, but the mask is off now.

I hope you all see what this is and what it means.
If you do you know you must resist.

heterochromatic - Oh, I have no illusions about a general strike taking place in this Newt-whipped land of exceptionalism. Everyone is so far in debt and afraid of their “boss” (read that as slave master) that the thought of “sticking it to the man” can only exist in the movie “School of Rock.”

The reason why Gandhi was so successful? The Indians had NOTHING to lose. Americans are simply too full of high fructose corn syrup; so fat and lazy that they can’t even be bothered to change the channel from FOX News.

NotOnkelSam - I’ve been saying all along that a Gandhi-esque national, general strike would be a far more powerful statement (and a scarier one) than “occupying” anything….If each and every person in the country simply didn’t show up for work for a few days (I mean everyone) under the pretense that they were simply too tired to feed the beast and needed a few days rest…..it would get the attention of those you accurately identify as our masters (the banks, the corporations, the “job creators). The politicians wouldn’t be able to send the para-military goon police forces to everyone’s home and drag them to work…crybaby New Yorkers would feel a totally different sort of “inconvenience” by not having anyone kissing their asses for a few days…..My, it would be incredible…Unfortunately, as I’ve said before, Americans have no stomach for real revolution (violent or non-violent) because they are too busy being “consumers” instead of being citizens. Citizenship is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT than simply feeling great about all the stuff one owns.

Some nice comments/debate here other than the one spouting ridiculous Rush/Hannity drivel…..fascism is far right wing, not left wing. The oft used on Faux News and their ilk “socialist” slam is more in the ballpark but my view on that is if only. Calling Obama a socialist is a joke.

I hope the occupy movement has serious legs, we’ll see. What is has done already is change some of the mainstream debate….and some of the coverage, finally some protesters from the left are getting shown…before that even big ones got little or no press while 29 teabaggers somewhere were all over the airwaves.

The bottom line is that the US political system is broken at it’s foundation, corporate money drives congress and the White House. “Citizen’s United” must be overturned, that would be a good start to real fundamental change.

Slash the defense budget, raise the highest tax bracket rate back to just 1/2 of where Ike, a republican, had it all 8 years he was in office. Legalize pot and tax it. Commit to green energy and to fixing our infrastructure just like Ike and the Freeway system…..jobs galore, thus even more revenue.

BTW, with the top tax rate at 91 or 92 % every year Eisenhower was president there were still plenty of rich people….they just may have had to get by on 100 million rather than 140 million or whatever…to me that’s painless as opposed to seniors eating cat food.

It’s become a completely rigged game over the last 30 years, it’s time to begin unrigging it.

The various Occupies do seem to have dealt creatively with a bit of human nature which has hurt similar efforts in the past. That is, our fascination with leaders & charisma.

The Occupies have cleverly stepped aside in a number of ways from that urge in themselves & in the media telling a story about them to the nation at large. This eliminates the spokesperson–celebrity, fashion–merchandising handle by which popular movements can easily be co–opted, trivialized, & diffused in cultures like our own.

Modern communications technology also changes much, offering many something like the tools & abilities implied in the notion “freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one.” It’s probably true every new communication medium starts with pornography, but pretty soon after, they start answering another seemingly basic human need by providing improved means of complaining about the government. And even taking action about it.

Still, my shoulders hunch in a land that seems less disturbed by rural types attending town meetings with AK47s dangling than by intelligentsia types banging away on drums.

Chris Hedges is an idiot. He pretends to be eloquent about human problems but has no clue about solutions. He sides with those who want to take the country down. He is undemocratic (oh thats right i forgot - he hates democracy - hes an anarchist) and he riles people up who are impotent to do anything but shout and wave their feeble fists. Stop writing your ugly garbage dude, and get a brain. Then get solutions. And the solutions are not people in sleeping bags, idiot - they are people working together, finding each other and being creative. Assist dont resist. Participation, not occupation you numbnut.

NotOnkelSam’s comments , the second in the series ) are very insightful. The ight way
is passive noncooperation with the beasts that use your money to profit themselves.
This would mean firstly, to withdraw all your money from the banks immediately . If a
majority do it that itself would shake the bankers than occupy wall street movement .
The next thing to do is to totally stop using credit cards. The money the bankers make
put of you is from the interest psyments that you make . The next is, to go into a total
and acute austerity mode yourselves. Cut down all entertainment , holidays, spend only
on essential food without over eating or eating fancy stuff , cut off buying beverages of
all sorts, confine yourselves and your families to drinking water only. Grow in your back
garden vegetables that you want to use. Don’t buy non - vegetarian stuff for three
months at least. Don’t smoke, don’t drink alcohol . And cut off all sports activities . Go
for running or walking . Don’t buy clothes or any new stuff for three months , unless
absolutely necessary. Of course don’t buy anything that’s imported ,including toys .no
need to send back emigrants . They would either help you in implementing the severe
austerity measures that you voluntarily impose on yourselves and your children or they
might go back to where they came from, on their own . So not to worry about
immigration or immigrants. . And , if you the glorious 99% , if ” we the people ” do
these just for three months (. 90 days , for less than 2000 hours ) , you can bring the
bankers and the importers of stuff down on to their knees by March 2012 !.Another way
of going about it is to court arrest by not running away or vacating occupied wall street
But to enmasse court arrest and fill all jail spaces .then when more and more people
nonviolently protest , where would they keep you , if arrested ? Yes , as is evident , we
were contributing unwittingly to the wealth of the bankers by over consuming everything
they threw at you in their pursuit of profit .They were counting on you to consume , they
were calculating on your over- enthusiasm or rank consumerism . Hence , realize that
the “control ” is in your own hands and NOT in theirs . You were allowing the
oppressors to oppress you.now, all that you have to do is to control your own
consumerism . Cut them off from their resources . Control your own spending habits.
Remove the fertilization of the oppressors , and they would panic and drive them to
introspect and improve their own habits. And, even care for the aspirations and welfare
of the 99% , hopefully. Disciplining your own needs , suspending your own cravings is
the cheapest way to discipline the bankers who should realize that their role is to
serve business and through business , society and not just their greedy shareholders.
The bankers should not boss over trade and commerce and manufacturing and
production units which create material goods and jobs for the prosperity of the 99%
and , not virtual debts- money for the benefit of just 1% only.

Well Ozark Michael I am not amazed at you. That is the same swillish smear the Reich wing mouth pieces are saying. There is no proof since the fellow they used is a mentally ill man who was covered in vasoline just a few weeks before to get dumb bunnies to show him on You Tube again. But grasping at straws is the way you roll we know. You must do better than the Bull Shit.